


if you feel like givin’ me a lifetime of devotion

by kattyshack



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (bow chicka wow wow), (let’s face it it totally will), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Belligerent Sexual Tension, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Family, Friends to Lovers, Humor, Marriage Proposal, Rating May Change, Road Trips, Romance, Self-Reflection, Weddings, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-05-12 03:56:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19221085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kattyshack/pseuds/kattyshack
Summary: Sansa needs a fake boyfriend to escort her to her aunt’s wedding. Theon is all too available, and happy to oblige.tumblr prompt inspo: ‘we’re fake-dating and i’m supposed to publicly break up with you but you’ve been irritating me lately so instead of dumping you i publicly proposed to mess up your plan and now we’re getting married, fuck’ au(title from “i second that emotion,” by smokey robinson & the miracles)





	1. prologue: The Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheSushiMonster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSushiMonster/gifts).



> a/n: for @thesushimonster, who reblogged this fic prompt and made me look at it with my own four eyes.
> 
> this is just a short prologue to kick things into gear, but more is coming and dear god, it is M O R E so get ready y’all, let’s do it uuuupppp
> 
> (also the titular song is like the most on-brand fake dating bop. smokey was really ahead of his time in so many ways and this is one of them.)

This thing with Theon was never supposed to be… a _thing_.

Not really.

That had been the whole point, that it wasn’t real, it was just a way to get Sansa’s pushy prattling preening aunt off her back so she wouldn’t continue to find herself on the worst blind dates imaginable.

(Because Harry Hardyng, _really_? Aunt Lysa likes to say that the only men Sansa dates are prats, and he’d been the most prattish yet.)

(And that thing — a much much much worse _thing_ than Theon ever was — with Petyr Baelish, which turned out to be some backwards ploy to make him realize his deeply-rooted infatuation with Lysa. It hadn’t worked, of course, as Lysa’s the only one deeply infatuated there — and deeply self-deluded, too, which would be none of Sansa’s business if Petyr hadn’t continued to send her ‘How are you?’ texts every bloody night for a month after.)

(Don’t even get her started on the time, not so terribly long ago, that she’d overheard her mother on the phone, her tone clipped shorter and shorter with every word: “No, Lysa, I’m afraid I don’t see any possibility that Sansa and Robin would make a particularly fine match.”)

(The mere implications of this conversation were enough for Sansa to beg off with a stress headache for the rest of her life.)

Theon had been a means to an end. And that sounds cruel, Sansa thinks, so she hates to think of it — of _him_ — like that. He wouldn’t mind it, though. Because he’d known the score from the start, he knew what she needed, what she wanted, and he’d been willing to play along. It was great fun for him, Sansa thought at the time, but as it’s been going on (and on and on and far too _on_ for something that was never meant to be real, but that’s neither here nor there, it’s too late for all that now), she doesn’t know what sort of _fun_ he’s about.

Whatever. That’s not quite the point.

 _The point is_ , that this arrangement — _The Thing_ , Sansa had taken to calling it, because she’d been drunk when she thought it up and it sounded dead clever at the time, for some reason (because drunk Sansa fancies everything she does to be dead clever, that’s the reason) — was never supposed to be… this. What it’s become, what it _is_.

It’s something she doesn’t like to think on.

And the thing ( _another_ thing, not _The Thing_ ) is, is that Sansa is a thinker. An overthinker, if you want to push it, but either way, thinking on things is what she does. She likes to examine it, to analyze and study the angles, she likes to figure it out. She’s a problem solver, is what it is, but she’s never managed to solve her own.

And Theon…

Well, Theon’s become a bit of a problem.

(Not a Harry or a Petyr or a Robin or an any-of-her-actual-ex-boyfriends problem, but a problem nonetheless.)

It’s not his fault.

Well, no. Okay. So. Some of it’s absolutely his fault.

But, reasonably speaking, it’s not his fault that she fancies him. That maybe she’s a little bit in love with him, or a _lot_ , or entirely head-over-heels really _in love_ , but she’s annoyed and going to blame it on him, anyway.

Besides, _to be fair_ , he’s the one who turned their means-to-an-end fake relationship on its head, because now he’s gone and bloody proposed to her.

Like a fucking idiot.

 _This part_ is one hundred percent completely wholeheartedly _absolutely_ his fault.

And so, _The Thing_ becomes less an abstract, one-sided emotional crisis on Sansa’s part, and more an Ordeal of necessarily-capslocked proportions, because not only does Theon Greyjoy get on bended knee for her, he does it in full view of her whole family and assorted acquaintances.

Theon Greyjoy, she thinks as he grins up at her — what with the bended knee and all — and the offered pearl-and-diamond ring winks merrily in its crushed velvet bed, is an _arsehole_.

And she’s probably going to have to seriously, actually, ‘til-death-do-us-part but that’s _fine_ because she’s definitely going to _kill him_ , marry him now.

(How they got here in the first place is something of a long story. How _The Thing_ became a thing at all is its own story, and Theon’s out-of-the-blue unexpected must-be-bullshit-because-how-could-it-be-anything- _but_ -dear- _god_ proposal, is just the cherry on top.)

(God _damn_ it.)


	2. if you got the notion...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> title: “i second that emotion” - smokey robinson & the miracles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: back at it again!! so i’m thinking of sticking with shorter chapters to start out with, as they’re less daunting and i’ll be able to update much more quickly this way without wanting to punch myself in the face. we’ll see how things shake out as we go along! ‘til then, please enjoy!

It all starts, as these things do, with a wedding.

Aunt Lysa’s wedding, to be exact, which would be enough of a nightmare as is, but no — no, it’s made the most horrifying, colossal cosmic joke when Sansa reads the spidery calligraphic name that accompanies her aunt’s.

 _“Petyr Baelish?”_ she reads aloud, in tones of the utmost incredulity. “Oh, gods, I’m going to be sick.”

Theon, who’s busying himself with the coffeepot on the counter, turns a quizzical frown on her. “Isn’t that the seedy old bloke she set you up with last year whereabouts?”

“Yes.” Sansa groans, and slumps forward on the breakfast bar in her parents’ kitchen, because there’s nothing else she can possibly say at the moment.

“Gross.” Arya wrinkles her nose, but still manages to shove toast and jam into her mouth, meanwhile Sansa’s gone off her appetite entirely.

“That’s unbelievable.” Robb picks up the discarded invitation to peruse it for authenticity. “No, I take it back — perfectly believable, but disgusting.”

Sansa only groans again, because it _is_ disgusting and she doesn’t want to think on it any more than that. She’s not going to have a choice, of course, the man’s about to be her uncle, but —

 _Ugh._ No. It’s too much.

As if he can read her mind, Theon pats her on the head, in a gesture she assumes is meant to be comforting but it feels patronizing, too, especially when he chuckles.

“There, there, now, love, what’s that they say about ‘keeping it in the family’?”

“Oh, _don’t_ ,” she pleads even as Arya and Rickon snort into their breakfasts. Robb’s brow is still furrowed over the invite, and Bran’s rooted in the envelope for another slip of paper (that can’t be anything good, Sansa thinks vaguely, but surely it can’t be anything _worse_ , right?) he’s reading. Sansa snatches Theon’s mug. “This is mine now, just for that.”

“Hasn’t got enough sugar in it,” he protests. He leans across her for the sugar bowl and drops three cubes into the cup for her. “There you are, now, darling.”

Arya snorts. “Gag me.”

Theon doesn’t bat an eye, only lifts a brow as he pours himself a fresh coffee. “Gendry into that, is he?”

“Gendry’s into whatever I tell him,” Arya agrees while Robb pretends he can’t hear them. He’s crunching obnoxiously on his cornflakes, gaping jaw and unnecessary mouth noises and all. “I figure as much, anyway. Why don’t you tell him to ask me out and we’ll see?”

“Ha! Ask him yourself, I’m not his pimp.”

“So useless. Why do we let you in the house?”

Sansa props herself up on her elbows, blows the hair from her face, and says, “Well, he’s got quite nice hands.”

“Cheers, love.” Theon winks at her, wriggles his fingers, too. Robb crunches louder.

“You know, Arya,” Bran says over his brother’s exaggerated discomfort, “you might have an excuse to ask Gendry out yourself, after all.”

“Yeah? How’s that?”

Bran brandishes the paper he’d been reading, penned on Aunt Lysa’s favourite overpriced stationary (as if any old cardstock just won’t _do_ ). “Some weddings have dress codes. To absolutely no one’s surprise, Aunt Lysa’s has got a _date_ code.”

“What?” Sansa about spits a mouthful of her confiscated coffee back into its cup. She grabs the proffered letter from Bran, who’d handed it off to her before she could even think to ask for it. Sharp, irritated blue eyes scan her aunt’s slanted-to-the-left words, all crisp and expectant. “Oh, you’ve _got_ to be kidding me —”

“Let’s see.” Theon plucks the letter from her grip, which had gone more helplessly slack with every line. He doesn’t fare much better, when it comes down to it. The good humour that all but defines his bone structure fades in a near-instant. “Christ, what a piece of work she is.”

“What’s it say?” Rickon makes a grab for the note, but Arya’s quicker. She’s got a more vested interest in the alleged ‘date code,’ though she does proceed to swear righteously every time she reads something she doesn’t like (which is to say, nearly the entire time she’s reading the thing).

“Basically? No one’s to come stag.” Theon pulls the cream liqueur from the fridge and tops off Sansa’s coffee, then his, then everyone else’s as they shove their mugs his way. “Then it’s a few paragraphs of shite about Sansa, which I s’pose is only to be expected from the bride to the ex-girlfriend. When the bride’s Lysa, I mean.”

“ _Hardly_ an ex-girlfriend. Not even close.” Sansa takes a fortifying draw from her cup. “Point taken, though. This is going to be a walk through hell, isn’t it?”

“More like a marathon, not a sprint, through hell,” Arya pipes up. She tosses the letter aside in clear disgust. Her voice goes shrill and self-important when she quotes, “ _‘I trust that my eldest niece will ensure a proper escort, preferably from a family so fine as ours and dear Petyr’s.’_ As if Baelish is any good stock to begin with. Best pace your livers, everyone.”

Sansa lifts her more-liqueur-less-coffee in a bullshit cheers. “Bit late for that.”

“I’ve got dibs on Shireen,” Rickon says as soon as he’s skimmed the letter for himself.

“Well, isn’t that the pits?” Arya turns her put-upon pout on her sister. “Now you won’t get to ask a sixteen-year-old girl to be your date. Rickon’s already called her.”

“Thank the gods I’m engaged,” Robb mutters. Then, when he realizes he didn’t say it quite as quietly as he’d meant, he looks to Sansa apologetically. “We’ll find you someone. Maybe one of the Umbers, Manderlys, Glovers… Fuck, Mum and Dad’ve got plenty of mates with eligible sons, haven’t they?”

“Depends on your interpretation of ‘eligible,’” Sansa notes drily. Theon snorts into his liberally-spiked coffee.

“You could do worse,” Robb says, though he doesn’t seem terribly convinced of it himself.

Still, Theon counters, “Could do a right side better, too.”

“Couldn’t she, though?” Bran says, rather oddly, with a serene little smile for Theon, who, to his credit, doesn’t appear to be too fussed about it.

“Yes, that’s what I’ve just said.”

(He and Bran have always seemed to have some deep, next-level understanding of one another that no one else could quite suss out, so it’s seldom that either of them puts the other off.)

“Whatever,” Sansa cuts in with a wave of her hands, because it doesn’t really matter how much better or worse she could do, as at the moment she’s not doing anything at all and the future’s not looking particularly bright, either. “I’ll figure something out. Worst comes to it I’ll just — I’ll ask Hot Pie to come along.”

Arya bristles, rather affronted. “Hot Pie’s not your _last resort_ , damn, Sansa, have a heart.”

“You know Aunt Lysa’s going to have the most ridiculous food the entire weekend. Hot Pie would have a lovely time.”

“Eh... “ Arya considers this, then nods, curt and accommodating. “You’re right. Best of his life.”

“He doesn’t make the list, though.” Bran indicates the letter again. “This is the most elite affair since that party the Tyrells hosted at the summer, for no reason other than to squander their new money.”

“Oi, play nice, now,” Sansa tuts. “It was a harvest festival of a sort, it’s been a Tyrell tradition for generations now, to hear Margaery tell it.

“Anyway,” she adds, with a cocked eyebrow, “don’t knock her party when it was her signature cosmos that got you toasted enough to finally ask Jojen for a date.”

“I’m not going to dignify that with a response,” Bran says, easy-breezy haughty as ever. The rest of them smirk, just a little. “Point is, Aunt Lysa’s whole affair is all uppercrust. Baratheons, Lannisters, Martells, _et cetera_ , and all of their illegitimate children, too — the good-looking ones, at least, because you know how Lysa is.”

Sansa, who’d alighted from her stool to refill her coffee, sighs and leans against the counter. Theon leans there with her, and tops off her mug again with liqueur while he’s at it.

“Thank you, dear,” she says to him, and takes a sip before she begins to mull over the possibilities aloud. “So who’s that leave, then? Not Gendry, of course, I’ll leave that to you, Arya.”

The girl in question whistles as she pours another generous shot into her coffee. “Thanks, mate.”

“So…” Sansa lifts a hand to tick them off her fingers. “Margaery’s the obvious choice, but —”

“She’ll be taking my sister,” Theon finishes for her.

“Right you are. There’s always Jon —”

Another snort from Theon. “As if he hasn’t already come up with an excuse not to go, whether he knows about it or not. You ever notice how adept he is at getting out of doing shite like this? Drives me fucking mad.”

“Right again,” Sansa concedes. “Loras and Renly are spoken for, naturally. There’s Trystane Martell —”

“He’s dating Myrcella,” Theon says with a shake of his head. “And he’s a good deal younger than you, you _harlot_.”

“I’m in crisis mode, thanks. What about one of your dodgy uncles, then?” she teases with an air of seriousness, just to have a go at him. “Think they’d fancy a high-class party with a high-class broad?”

“Oh, they’d fancy you for a helluva lot more than that,” Theon remarks. He brings his mug to his lips. “Also, _no_.”

“Joffrey, then, the dreaded ex —”

“Another resounding no from me.”

“Jorah Mormont,” Sansa tries.

“Wildly in love with another woman,” Theon reminds her (as if anyone needs a reminder, it’s so bloody _obvious_ ).

“Oberyn.”

“Ellaria’s Oberyn? Well, you’d certainly have a good threesome, I’ll say that.”

“Aegon.”

“That’s his _real name_ , you know. That what you want? To introduce your date ‘round, all ‘Oh, this is my boyfriend, Aegon Targaryen, he’s got a stupid name and he’s even worse in bed’?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Yes, but everyone would _know_.”

“Fine,” Sansa sighs. “One more try, then.”

Theon tilts his mug in invitation. “Go on, let’s see what you’ve got.”

She narrows her eyes, tries not to grin so as not to spoil the game. “Daario Naharis.”

“Excuse me,” he splutters, utterly scandalized but laughing all the same, “do you _want_ chlamydia?”

That makes her laugh, too, despite how completely hopeless and wretched and potentially humiliating and _definitely_ painful this whole ordeal is going to be. There will be _some_ moments, at least, to get her through — that’s what all the liqueur’s for, after all.

Neither Robb nor Rickon are paying them any mind now. Neither of them need to worry over Aunt Lysa’s preferences — alright, her as-good-as _law_ , the bloody bridezilla — and they tend to believe that things will work out for the best, because things always do for them.

They mean well and she loves them for it, but Theon’s certainly a better commiserator in her misery, Sansa thinks.

Bran, however, is watching them, that serene little smile toying with his mouth, like he’s in on some private joke that everyone else _should_ know and yet they don’t. It’s a maddening thing, but they’re all too used to it by now to care overmuch. 

Arya’s not so serene, or quiet, even, when she barks out a laugh at the pair of them and says, “Oh, for fuck’s sake, get a room.”

“Been trying for years,” Theon quips, taking the jab in stride as he does most everything. He shoots Sansa another wink. “Reckon she’s too good for me, though.”

“Ah, but you’re getting there,” Sansa jokes when he drops a fresh sugar cube into her cup. “Thanks, dollface.”

“Oi” — he grins, all cheek as usual — “that’s my line.”

Yes, Theon’s always good for a line and a laugh, isn’t he? Sansa thinks at the time, over liqueur and coffee and sugar cubes, and the breakfast burritos she’s going to need to grill in just a mo’, if they want to stave off early morning drunkenness.

(Perhaps it’s the cloudy carefree effects of just that, that stops Sansa from considering Theon any further, but…

Well. She’ll get to it soon enough.)


	3. let’s pretend, oh, let’s make believe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> title: “can we pretend” - pink

When Sansa thinks of it — the solution, the _plan_ — she thinks, too, how stupid she’d been not to realize it sooner.

“Arya,” she says, as she and her sister lounge by the pool the weekend after Lysa’s instructions arrived. The boys are in the water, and Theon’s just popped above the surface with a grin that seems to have switched on the light in Sansa’s brain. “I think I’ve been an idiot.”

“Hm,” Arya hums, uninterested, as the sun’s put her halfway to sleep by now.

Probably a good thing, Sansa considers in near-immediate retrospect. It’s for the best if she doesn’t tell anyone else. Her family can’t keep a secret to save their lives — they’re all much too invested in each other’s business to keep any scrap of intel to themselves — which would only be all the more humiliating if Aunt Lysa were to find her out.

There’s sure to be any number (likely infinite, but never mind that now) of troubles with this insofar half-arsed plan of hers, but it’s the best she’s got and she’s _tenacious_ , damn it, she can make this work.

The first trouble is getting Theon alone long enough to bang this thing out.

Wait.

No.

Not _bang_. Sansa shakes herself of that poor word choice.

It’s only because Theon’s just pulled himself out of the pool, all impressive forearms — actually, impressive _whole_ arms — and bare chest, speckled with water, kissed by the sun and starting to freckle. On the verge of too-long dusty blonde curls plastered to his finely drawn face, eyes laughing and water droplets clinging to his lashes.

 _Oh, gods._ Sansa takes a long — a _loooooong_ — draw from her water bottle. She can admit she’s hard-up, has been for perhaps an embarrassing long time, but now she’s just being ridiculous. Theon is beautiful, yes, objectively — purely _aesthetically_ , he’s the most beautiful boy she’s ever seen, but that is… beside the point.

The point is, she’s got a plan now (sort of, _mostly_ ), and she doesn’t need her baser instincts to disrupt, especially since they’ve been quite happily latent recently, so she doesn’t see why they should bother stirring now.

That’s going to be another trouble, isn’t it? Ah, well. She’ll deal with it when the time comes, but for now she can’t afford to be deterred from her course of action.

Sansa heads inside on the pretense of making lunch. Her siblings won’t dare to pop into the kitchen ‘til she’s finished, lest they be asked to help. Greedy little things, she thinks fondly, but it’s to her advantage today so she thanks the gods to be blessed with such a lazy, shite-at-cooking family (barring her mother, of course, but her parents are at Last Hearth for the weekend, so Sansa’s on her own).

She’s gone all of ten minutes, not even, when her efforts bear fruit. Theon strolls through the door, alone and shirtless as you please, whistling tunelessly as he digs into the ice box for the beers Arya stored there that morning.

“Want any help?” he offers, because he always does.

Or he has since he outgrew his teenaged impulse to be nothing but a thorn in her side. She’s not quite sure when this shift in behavior happened, only that it’s never been particularly surprising to her. Sansa’s always managed to see the best in people. Even her Aunt Lysa, which is why she’d entertained all those blind dates in the first place, even if she’s long since lost her patience by now.

“Yeah, thanks,” Sansa says as she slices bread for sandwiches. “Not with lunch, though.”

“Oh?” Theon lifts an eyebrow along with his beer. She determinedly does not watch the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows. “Am I about to be propositioned?”

“Ha, ha, ha.”

“Not every day a fit girl like you’s asking for help, _‘but not with lunch,’_ ” he points out.

Sansa rolls her eyes. “You read too much erotica.”

“I’m lonely.” He pouts. “Pity me.”

“Hmm.” She pretends to think on it as she slaps ingredients together. No mustard for Bran, extra for Robb and Rickon, spicy for Arya, and on and on. “I’ll give you pity in exchange for the biggest favor of your otherwise uneventful life, how’s that?”

“Sweet talk me, why don’t you?” Theon gives her that grin that does _not_ make her knees buckle (it _doesn’t_ ), and leans his hip on the counter next to her. “Alright, what’s this favor, then?”

Sansa keeps her voice steady and her gaze on the sandwiches. She sneaks a couple of cherry tomatoes as she talks to keep her looking nonchalant, like it’s no great task and it won’t be a punch to the stomach for him to tell her no.

But it seems he’s no intention of denying her. Every word she speaks has the corners of Theon’s mouth quirking, ‘til she’s finished and he’s flashing her his full-watt, toothy smile, eyes dancing and crinkled at the corners.

“You want me to be your boyfriend?” he reiterates. He says it like she’s told him mermaids are real and all his years of vehement insistence to that fact have finally been rewarded. “Damn, Stark, I thought you’d never ask.”

“ _Fake_ boyfriend, Theon,” she reminds him. She points the butter knife at him, but he only clinks his bottle against it and takes another drink. “This only works if you understand, very pointedly, that this isn’t real, which means you’re only allowed to grab my arse when we’re in public.”

“Well, doll, that’s the only time I’d want to do it, anyway.”

“In the interest of our… arrangement,” Sansa decides, because that’s the safest word for it, “I have to know — are you an exhibitionist?”

He makes that ridiculous noise in the back of his throat, purring like he thinks he’s bloody Eartha Kitt. “I’m whatever you want me to be, baby.”

_“Theon.”_

“Don’t use that tone, you know it gets me all hot and bothered.” He laughs when she snorts at him. “Anyway. Look, isn’t that the point of us doing this? Make everybody believe we’re mad about each other? So, yeah, ‘course I’m going to feel you up whenever we’ve got an audience.”

He’s right, of course, but —

“Also because you’re like… _whoa_ ,” Theon adds, giving her a very obvious, very appreciative once-over (which she gets, because this _is_ an especially flirty two-piece she’s got on), “and I want to. Been looking for an excuse, actually, so thanks for this.”

She laughs him off. It takes him a second to join her, but she won’t look too far into that.

“You’re sure you want to do it this way?” he asks next. “The whole boyfriend thing? You don’t want me to just, I dunno… escort you?”

“What for?” She shrugs and tries to make another joke of it. “So you can ditch me for a shorter skirt at the reception?”

Rather surprisingly — to Sansa’s mind, anyway — Theon doesn’t take it for the joke she’d intended. And, sure, there was a twinge of hurt behind it at the thought, but she’s willing to chalk that up to her own lousy romantic history. It’s nothing to do with him, really.

“Oh, come off it,” he scoffs. “You think I’d do that to you?”

“I’m… not… sure…” She says it slowly but honestly.

It’s been — gods, _ages_ since Theon’s brought a date ‘round, so long that she can’t even recall the last time it happened. But he’s always been charming and personable and all those things that can win someone over within the span of one conversation at the end of the bar, so…

It’s not out of the realm of possibility, is what she’s saying. 

And Theon’s been through a lot, she remembers; she couldn’t easily forget it. So if he were to meet someone, no matter the circumstances of whatever arrangement they strike now, she couldn’t bear to take that away from him, no matter any twinge of hurt. She loves him too dearly for that.

It seems, too, that Theon loves her too dearly to let her think he’d make anything harder for her than it already is.

He pushes a comforting hand through her hair and gives her another smile. “Well, I wouldn’t.”

This has gotten… _heavier_ , Sansa thinks, than she’d imagined it could. She needs to diffuse it.

“Okay.” She returns his smile to reassure him, and makes no note of the shiver of her skin when his hand falls, fingers brushing her shoulder. She has enough problems at present to take note of anything else. Best to get on with things.

“Well, you know, regardless,” she continues, as if the last handful of minutes hadn’t happened at all, “I don’t think a date would do it, honestly. I thought it might be that easy at first, but Lysa and her whole circle are… old-fashioned, I suppose would be the polite way to say it.”

“Imagine that,” Theon replies drily.

Sansa laughs again, lightly and a bit forced this time. “Right. So you see the problem with me simply being escorted, and by a Greyjoy. No offense,” she adds, “but, well, you know.”

“Unfortunately I do,” he agrees, “so I’m going to overlook how offensive that was.”

“I’m _sorry_.”

“No, no, you’re my girlfriend now. Perfectly alright for you to disparage your future in-laws.”

“As if you don’t disparage them on your own on a daily basis.”

“Right you are.” Theon tilts his bottle towards her in something like a toast. “That’s why you’re my woman now.”

That gets another laugh out of her. If nothing else, parading around as a couple with Theon is going to be great fun. Sansa thinks it might even make the stress of this wedding melt away completely. She’ll have to think of a way to thank him for that.

“We’ll have to come up with something about how” — she gestures between them — “ _this_ happened.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that, love,” Theon says, so assuredly that he almost has Sansa convinced that they really don’t need to do anything further.

But she’s too much a reasonable woman not to think through the details — or the details she can control, at any rate, but she’s not going to torture herself over anything else just yet — so she says, “Of course I’m worried about it, we need to convince the family that this is real.”

“They’ll believe it,” Theon insists, and again she has to wonder how he _knows_. “Robb especially, and if he’s alright with it I don’t reckon anyone else will put up a fuss, they’ll just be glad when he shuts up about it.”

Sansa’s brow furrows. “What do you mean, ‘Robb especially’?”

“Ah…” Theon clears his throat, scratches the side of his nose, shrugs and takes another drink, all that. “Oh, you know, just that he thinks every man in the world’s got dishonorable designs on you, so he won’t be surprised when I tell him I’ve asked you out.”

That’s fair enough; in fact it makes things a little easier (hopefully), if she and Theon appear to be an inevitable _thing_ like that.

“When should we tell them, d’you think?” he wants to know.

“Maybe a month?” Sansa chews on her lip thoughtfully as she finishes off the last of the sandwiches. “We’ve got a few ‘til the wedding so there’s plenty of time for us to play a convincing couple.”

“We don’t do a half-bad job of that now, if you want to know the truth. My sister keeps asking if we’ve fucked yet. Don’t get embarrassed, now,” he says, interpreting the flush of her cheeks straightaway. “Reckon that’s a good thing, isn’t it? This won’t be too hard.”

Depends on how you think about it, Sansa supposes, but she’s not supposed to be dwelling on all the troubles right now, is she? So she locks them up and tells herself she’ll handle it later.

“Well, now we’ve just got to bang out some rules, I think —”

 _Oh, bugger._ She’s gone and said it, hasn’t she? And Theon’s certainly not going to let her get away with it.

“We can bang out whatever you like, love,” he teases, proving her point. “Shall we head upstairs, or is the kitchen good for you?”

“The kitchen’s _fine_.”

Theon casts a look at the sliding glass door that overlooks the back patio. “ _Now_ who’s the exhibitionist?”

When she flips him off, he laughs and she shoves half a sandwich in his mouth.

“How’s that? Too much sweet relish?”

“Nah, perfect.” Theon swipes another from the plate. “So what are these rules, then?”

It takes about another quarter of an hour — and by the end of it Sansa’s got to make another half-dozen sandwiches to replace the ones they’ve eaten — but they come up with a playbook that should serve them fairly well in the months to come.

**1\. Don’t tell anyone.**

_“Oh, I’m telling_ everyone _.”_

_“Theon, be serious.”_

**2\. No flirting with anyone else, because it’s going to make the other look stupid or at worst it will blow the entire operation.**

_“I told you I wouldn’t do that already but, yeah, go on and put it on the list if you must.”  
_

_“Don’t take it so personally. It’s a precautionary measure.”  
_

_“Right, sure. Add it right next to ‘work on our trust issues, god damn, Stark.’”  
_

_“That’s not a rule.”  
_

_“I hereby add it.”  
_

_“Whatever.”_

**3\. Discuss and respect each other’s boundaries.**

_“I’m still gonna grab your arse when you introduce me to anyone with more than two names.”  
_

_“I’m sorry, what?”  
_

_“_ _You know, anyone who’s called something like ‘Aegon Targaryen, ninety-billionth of his name, heir to Dragonstone and a shite legacy because his name sort of predetermines the fact that he sucks.’”_

_“Are you ever going to let the Aegon thing go? You’re worse than Jon, honestly.”  
_

_“This is the one time Snow and I agree on something, but at least I’m not related to the bloke. It’s a stupid name, Sansa.”_

_“If this is about stupid names, you’ll be grabbing my arse about ‘ninety billion’ times at cocktail hour alone.”  
_

_“I fail to see the problem with that.”_

**4\. Equal opportunity with the radio on the drive up.**

_“How far is it to the Vale gain?”  
_

_“A weekend trip, at least.”_

_“I’ll agree to this only if every hour, on the hour, we sing along to ‘Ain’t Too Proud to Beg.’”_

_“Obviously, Theon.”_

**5\. Stare dreamily into each other’s eyes at least eighty percent of the time.**

(This addition is solely Theon’s. Sansa can see the merit just as well as she can see the absurdity, and it’s the latter which she points out to him.)

_“That might be overkill.”_

_“Nah, it’s mathematically reasonable. The other twenty percent’s when we’re sleeping or at the loos.”_

_“I’m not doing that, Theon.”_

_“Then you’ve got to wear one of those shirts with my name in the middle of a heart, otherwise how will anyone know we’re in love?”_

_“‘One of those shirts’? As if those exist?”_

_“I’ll make you one.”_

(She does not for a moment believe that — she should, perhaps, this is _Theon_ , after al, but then again Theon’s quite fond of taking the piss, too — but it does effectively end their discussion of rules, as they appear to have reached their peak.)

Likely there is more to be said on the subject, but they’ve done an alright job of it for now and Sansa’s got sandwiches to dole out. So they leave it as is, with the express understanding that the rules are subject to change. It all depends on what happens with what they’ve got so far.

It’s very much ‘wing it,’ but she’s grateful to have someone to wing it _with_ now. 

Honestly, Sansa’s just relieved to have anything at all, after biting her nails for a week or so after her aunt’s invitation arrived. She’d been sick to her stomach and her manicurist had been appalled. At least now she’s got… _something_.

She’s got Theon. 

She shoots him a sidelong glance as they walk back out to the pool, platter of sandwiches in her hands and a cooler of beer in his. He trades her look for another grin and somehow it makes things feel easy.

“Christ,” Arya says when she sees them, mostly awake now, “what took you so long?”

Breezy as ever, like no plots have been hatched and nothing’s going on, Sansa replies with mostly the truth — “Theon kept eating all the sandwiches.”

“Oh, yeah,” he says, laughing as he does. “Ate just about everything in that kitchen.” He waggles his tongue at her and winks.

Sansa blushes. She’d kick him if she could get away with it, but as it is she only sticks her tongue out at him in return. _Stupid, clever boy._

(And if there’s something about that wink that gets to her every time he does it — and he does it a _lot_ , it’s impossible not to notice — then that’s just another trouble that she’ll have to deal with whenever she figures out precisely _how_.

But right now — once she’s set the plate down and Theon immediately grabs her ‘round the waist, with warm callused hands and a big bright laugh, to toss her into the pool — isn’t quite the time for all that.)


End file.
